Cape Town - The national legislature wants to ensure fairness when it embarks on the removal process of Pubic Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane after the DA levelled allegations of incompetence and misconduct against her.
This was the word from the National Assembly Programme Committee when it met yesterday after the panel that conducted assessment on incompetence and misconduct found Mkhwebane has a case to answer.
Briefing the committee, Secretary to the National Assembly Masibulele Xaso said the rules provided that the report be placed before the National Assembly to consider the report with due urgency.
“If the House agrees with the report, it will be referred to a committee of the National Assembly,” Xaso said.
He also said the multiparty committee would have to establish the veracity of the allegations.
“The committee must ensure the inquiry is conducted in a reasonable and procedurally fair manner within reasonable time frame. The committee must afford the holder of the office the right to be heard in her own defence and to be assisted by a legal practitioner of her choice,” Xaso said.
The meeting agreed to a proposal by ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina to table the report on March 16, except the EFF. EFF MP Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi said the national legislature needed to find its feet on how to deal with the matter.
“There is no need for us to rush the proposal from the ANC. Let us satisfy ourselves and get a report next week on process to be followed,” Mkhaliphi said.
This was after there was some confusion on the nature of consideration of the report when it was tabled to the House.
NFP MP Munsoor Shaik-Emam agreed that the report should come up for a debate and decision on whether it should be referred to a committee.
However, Majodina said the report should be tabled for noting and then referred to a multiparty committee.
“Starting to debate without subjecting it to a committee that is going to do the inquiry might be dangerous for Parliament because we will debating something that is not fully processed.”
Gerhard Koornhof, a parliamentary counsellor to President Cyril Ramaphosa, came out in support of March 16, and stated that there was a need for a legal opinion on what consideration of the report meant by the National Assembly.
“I propose that we accept the date and that we get a legal interpretation of how exactly we consider the consideration of the report,” he said.
ANC deputy chief whip Doris Dlakude said on March 16 there would be the tabling of the panel’s report and not dealing with the actual removal process.
“There will be no rushing of anything in this regard,” Dlakude said, adding that parties should make their own declarations and “not deal with merits of issues”.
DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone said it would be in Parliament’s interest to have a senior counsel to advise on the correct process to be followed.
“I would caution we use an incredible senior counsel that can never be questioned in terms of legal integrity as well as their legal opinion. That safeguards us as an institution” she said.
ANC MP Chana Pilane-Majake called for maintaining the integrity of the process.
“Whatever procedure that is actually to be embarked upon, it should be such that it helps even in the eyes of the public to actually send the message that the whole process is above board,” Pilane-Majake said.
Speaker Thandi Modise said they should be careful what messages the South African Parliament was sending out. She said they should take the report to the House for it to decide to proceed and if they should, to the committee stage or not.
“It would be a sad day though, I must say it upfront, that with the report all of you party leaders have in your hands we say we don’t want a committee stage. We would really be putting democracy in this country to a shame. Whichever way, we owe it to the country, to the institution (and) to the individual involved to go through a process which in the end all of us can live with,” Modise said.
mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za
Political Bureau